GoPro Hero3 Black - 4 Questions - Thanks!

I got a GoPro Hero3 Black Edition for Christmas from the wife and have a few questions for you guys. The below video was filmed at 1080p@60fps wide FOV and edited using Windows Movie Maker, this is the first video I have ever edited. It is a road bike video, but don't worry I have a Specialized Stumpjumper I will be making videos with shortly

1) The raw video off the gopro (.mp4) is of better quality than the edited and saved video before even uploading to youtube. I tried saving from Windows Movie Maker as both .mp4 or .wmv and it didn't make much of a difference. I did specify in the save settings 1080p@60fps FYI. Is this due to normal compression and cannot be avoided? The difference is not drastic, but very easily noticeable when looking at the blue sky, it looks blocky/pixelated compared to the original file.

2) I am currently using the gopro chest mount and have heard a lot of people use 1080p@60fps with the chest mount. In the gopro manual it says 1440p is "Recommended for body-mounted shots as larger viewing area and high frame rate yield the smoothest, most immersive results for high action capture."

However, 1440p only records at 48fps vs 1080p records up to 60fps. Also, 1440p is 4:3 aspect ration compared to 1080p which is 16:9. Thoughts?

3) My video had a copyright song in it and I have read up and now understand the youtube will generally add ads to your video due to this. The problem is with ads youtube will not allow mobile devices to view your video. I guess for the future I will avoid copyright songs all together or maybe look into vimeo. Thoughts?

4) Does anyone used the video stabilization offered by youtube? Are there any drawbacks to it?

1) The raw video will always be a lot better than anything you upload to YouTube or Vimeo, because the bitrate can be a lot higher. YouTube and Vimeo provide a fairly low bitrate. Unless this has changed recently, they also don't support 60 fps playback, meaning that they convert you 60 fps video to 30 fps. You would probably do better by directly exporting in a limited bitrate and 30 fps from the video editor.

2) The 1440p (4:3) is often recommended for chest mount since it allows you to adjust the picture when going to 16:9 aspect ratio. Again, the higher framerate currently gains you nothing for YouTube or Vimeo.

3) Copyrighted material is always problematic and the best way is to avoid this. There are several places where you legally can get music for free for your videos.

4) Never tried.

I got a Black Hero 3 yesterday myself, so I'm looking forward to a lot of testing during the weekend.

1) The raw video will always be a lot better than anything you upload to YouTube or Vimeo, because the bitrate can be a lot higher. YouTube and Vimeo provide a fairly low bitrate. Unless this has changed recently, they also don't support 60 fps playback, meaning that they convert you 60 fps video to 30 fps. You would probably do better by directly exporting in a limited bitrate and 30 fps from the video editor.

After looking at the video I saved, it was 8,000 bitrate The original gopro file was 30,000 bitrate. I didn't realize youtube doesn't support 60fps, good to know. I guess unless I plan on slowing down the video in editing, 60fps not needed for youtube videos.

Originally Posted by Outsider

2) The 1440p (4:3) is often recommended for chest mount since it allows you to adjust the picture when going to 16:9 aspect ratio. Again, the higher framerate currently gains you nothing for YouTube or Vimeo.

As a rookie I understand this as: it allows you to crop a certain portion of the frame out while keeping HD (1080p) video. For example you could chop off some of the ground you don't care about seeing for the entire clip. Correct? If so, this is probably something I won't bother with.

Originally Posted by Outsider

3) Copyrighted material is always problematic and the best way is to avoid this. There are several places where you legally can get music for free for your videos.

Agree, now I know. It is just so much easier using media I already know I enjoy as oppose to having to search for it!

Originally Posted by Outsider

I got a Black Hero 3 yesterday myself, so I'm looking forward to a lot of testing during the weekend.

60 fps 8 mbps isn't really a very good speed, even with 30 fps it is not much. But on the other hand it should be easy to generate 30 fps material directly from the video editor.

I think the real value in the 1440p mode is that you get room to crop out the unnecessary part when going to 16:9 aspect ratio. This might be necessary since you might not be able to aim the camera very accurately, though nowadays you can at least check a preview with a mobile phone.

Regarding the music I agree. I've spent hours on Jamendo trying to find suitable music.

Does anyone use the video stabilization offered by youtube for their biking videos? Are there any drawbacks to it?

I've tried it on my videos to see if it made it better or worse. I thought it made them look weird and jello-like. I would imagine it may work good for someone walking while recording video, etc. it would take away the minor movement and may look better. For biking I think there is just too much action or movement going on for the software to do the right job.

You could always try it on YouTube and see if you like the results, then remove the effect if you don't.

I've tried it on my videos to see if it made it better or worse. I thought it made them look weird and jello-like. I would imagine it may work good for someone walking while recording video, etc. it would take away the minor movement and may look better. For biking I think there is just too much action or movement going on for the software to do the right job.

You could always try it on YouTube and see if you like the results, then remove the effect if you don't.

Image stabilization usually analyzes the video, looking for points where the image is shaky and uses some pretty intense math to reduce that shakiness into a fluid looking motion. The "jello" look is caused by the way the camera's sensor reads light. I could try to explain it, but this wiki article will do better!Rolling shutter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I've noticed with my Hero3 you won't notice the jello effect until you stabilize it.
An advance stabilizer such as the one in Adobe's Creative Suite can attempt to reduce the jello effect and render a smooth looking video. Youtube's Stabilizer only looks at for shakiness.

Your best bet for stabilizing is to properly adjust the chest mount. I don't own one yet but I've been researching them and people say they only get smooth fluid footage when it's adjusted to them. Look around on this forum for some tips on that.

As far as the bitrate goes, if you set up the editor and export the video with the correct settings, you can maintain the same quality.I don't use Movie maker so I'm afraid I can't tell you how to go about it. I'm sure someone here can help you out with that though!